Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“First time for everything.” I sit in my chair, hoping he just turns and walks out of the room. But when I start the computer and look back up, he’s still there watching me. “Is that what this meeting is about?”
“I’m calling bullshit.” He narrows his eyes at me. “But I don’t care enough to get on your ass about it. Especially with that shit on your neck.” He points at my neck, and my hand comes up. The red-and-purple mark that I saw when I came home right before I stepped into the shower. I’m pissed at myself for how it got there, then pissed at myself when I closed my eyes and my cock got hard thinking about it.
“Thank you, I guess.” I chuckle as I take a sip of the hot coffee, actually thankful he isn’t going to ask any more questions because, truth be told, I’d have to lie to him. That’s something I have never done, except for two seconds ago, but that was not really a lie. I did sleep in, just not in my bed.
“We have five new horses coming in today,” he reminds me. “Should be here in about an hour or so.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be out there when they get here,” I tell him. “Then if you're nice to me, I’ll buy you dinner.” I wink at him, trying not to laugh at the face he gives me.
He pffts. “Fuck that, you want to do something nice, give me a day off.”
It’s my turn to pfft at him, putting one hand on the armrest. “Last time I forced you to take a vacation, you stopped talking to me for a whole month.” I point at him. “And then came back to work after two days where you told me to get fucked.”
He shrugs. “I could do with a day off here and there.” I can see the boredom all over his face as he says it. He has no family and came to us when he returned from serving two tours overseas. He was in foster care most of his life, enlisted when he turned eighteen, and finally had enough. My family adopted him since my cousin, Ethan, took him under his wing when he got out. Now he’s in his thirties and refuses to date anyone or have any ties to anybody. I know he gets laid, or else he would be a bigger pain in the ass. The question is, who is he having sex with? I’ve never seen him with a girl, not once in the past ten fucking years.
“Then take a day off.” I pick up my cup. “Take two days off.”
“Now you’re just fucking with me.” He turns on his boot and storms to the door. “Also heard from a couple of people that Autumn just almost got assaulted”—the blood drains from my face—“by Mrs. Cartwright in the middle of Main Street.” My heart beats when he says who it was.
“I don’t know why you would think I care,” I say tightly, ignoring the way my heart laughs at me. “The only thing I want to know about Autumn is when she is getting the fuck out of Dodge.”
“When are you going to give it up?” he asks me, but he doesn’t wait for me to answer. “That girl did what needed to be done, and she has been paying for it ever since.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, and it’s a good thing because I don’t have an answer. All I can do is swallow down the lump in my throat.
I wait until I hear the back door shut before I close my eyes and let go of a breath I was holding. But closing my eyes doesn’t help, because all I see is Autumn, but not the Autumn from before, the Autumn writhing under me. Arching her neck as she took my cock. The thought makes the coffee in my stomach lurch.
Showing up at her house wasn’t something I planned to do, storming to her, also something that wasn’t planned. Fucking her, definitely not what I planned. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever think about fucking Autumn. Then if that wasn’t bad enough, I spent the fucking night. I collapsed on the bed beside her, opening my eyes and seeing the dark—not knowing where I was for a second—and then seeing her sleeping on her side, legs to her chest, shivering. I moved her as I covered both of us and then fell right back to sleep. It was to rest my eyes for a second, but the next thing I knew the alarm was blaring and I opened my eyes and saw her head. I was hoping to get out of there before she woke up but who was I kidding, the fucking alarm would wake the dead. I don’t want to think about last night and I most definitely don’t want to think about the shit show that was the morning after. Sadly, all I can do is hear her words in my head, Because unlike you, this is the first time I’ve had sex in eight years. She was lying, she had to be lying.